Statistical Review: Louisiana-Monroe #64

For some stupid reason we thought it was an upset when Louisiana-Monroe beat Arkansas. After Tyler Wilson was knocked out of the game, which more or less neutralized Hamilton and Cragg, Louisiana-Monroe was hands down the better team. Kolton Browning and crew racked up 550 yards of offense and held the ball for 40 minutes!

In week one we should have learned that Arkansas wasn't very good. In week two we should have learned that Auburn was even worse. What we did learn is that Louisiana-Monroe is much more effective when they go for it on 4th down than when they kick field goals. Few teams were more effective in the red zone (5.3 points per trip) but the Warhawks made only five of nine field goal attempts.

The offense was best characterized by the 5.9 plays per possession. It lacked explosiveness (e.g., 11 yards per completion) and Browning was the leading rusher despite a negative EPA on running plays. But Browning completed 64% of his pass attempts and the Warhawks were very good on 3rd down.

The defense was sub-par, average against the run and less than average on passing plays.

The Statistical Review breaks down teams along a number of performance categories, everything from red zone scoring to field goal percentage, and compares that performance against the rest of the FBS. All 124 teams will be reviewed from 124 to 1 by the hybrid rankings. You can find short descriptions of the stats used in the table below.